2011 MASC/MASS Joint Conference Schedule
Times subject to change
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 9
9:00am-3:00pm: COSCAP Workshop
School committee secretaries/administrative assistants: Join your collegues at this information-packed program on issues including records retention, CORI checks and others.
11:00am-5:00pm: Conference Registration opens
12:45-2:00pm: Panel Session I
• The Future of Regionalization/Collaboration
Helping school districts collaborate more effectively can bring savings of time, energy and dollars. Learn how education collaboratives are working to identify and implement some important cost-saving programs and help districts think about issues such as restructuring and regionalization.
• Financial Reporting
Learn about award winning best budgeting and financial management practices in Needham that address: strategic budgeting & long term financial planning; keeping the school committee informed & engaged; building good working relationships between the school committee, the superintendent, the town/city manager, and finance committee; and pursuing cost savings and operational efficiencies around collective bargaining, transportation, and sped.
• District Governance Support Project
A landmark initiative getting underway will help prepare school committees and superintendents to join in clear, collaboration to focus on student achievement. New resources and training will be coming online that will help school committee members have a meaningful impact on the success of children in their districts, and this session will present the program and explain how you can use the resources.
• Staying out of Legal Trouble
Staying out of legal hot water in today’s regulatory environment can often seem like mission impossible. Hear from one of the state’s leading school law attorneys on how to steer clear of liability issues, including new insurance concerns and take proactive steps before trouble strikes.
• Collaborative Approach to District-Wide Reform
In partnership with the Working Group for Educator Excellence (WGEE)—a state-wide coalition of 26 educational organizations—the districts of Attleboro, Brockton and Revere are currently implementing systemic reform, aimed at aligning each district's systems for supporting teaching, learning and leading. Attendees will hear about both the successes in planning comprehensive, systemic reform as well as the outlook for long-term change in each district and what has been the reform's impact on student learning.
2:10-3:15pm: Panel Session II
• Building District Leadership Capacity
This workshop will review the process used by three school districts to develop norms and protocols leading to an effective working partnership between the school committee and superintendent. Panelists will show how they began this work and how they monitor progress in following these norms and protocols. Panelists will also highlight how this approach has promoted positive community engagement and enhanced student achievement.
• Race to the Top Update
RTTT impacts every district. This session will feature DESE RTTT team members explaining what’s next for 2011-12 and how this major federal initiative will impact school district evaluations, data tracking and efforts to close the achievement gap.
• Lateral Thinking in Teacher Negotiations
With the financial and social underpinnings of public education changing, all Massachusetts teacher contracts must incorporate new evaluation and health benefits language. Information from four other states at the forefront of change sheds light on the negotiations path. This session will also review the dialogue between the Commissioner of Education and the Massachusetts Teachers’ Association leadership, and focus on districts in the Commonwealth that have recently settled new contracts.
• Electronic Board Meetings
If your school committee is interested in going "green", electronic board meetings is the way to go. This program will focus on cutting down on paper while gaining greater access to information and increasing your record-keeping efficiency.
• Finding and Implementing Cost Efficiencies
Recipients of the MASBO First Annual Operational & Cost Efficiency Award will share how the Lexington Public Schools returned over $6.4 million in operational costs over a five-year period and continue to maintain a $2.5 million cost avoidance in ongoing program cost for special education services and operations.
• Role of the Chair
Effective school committee meetings begin with an effective chair. This session will focus on techniques chairs can use to get the most out the school committee meetings.
3:20-4:30pm: Panel Session III
• School Committee Self-Assessment
Learn about several alternate models for evaluating your school committee, including how you can understand what best practices and operations look like before you start.
• Achieving Great School Committee/Superintendent Partnerships
Explore ways superintendents and school committee members can work together to build district capacity. Such topics as labor-management partnerships, communication patterns, and how to divide responsibilities while complementing each other will be considered and discussed from multiple vantage points. Emphasis will be placed on how policymakers and administrators can collaborate to overcome challenges and leverage limited time and energy on behalf of schools and students.
• District Analysis and Review Tool
The District Analysis and Review Tool (DART) focuses on gathering data submitted by districts and analyzing it in such a way as to be useful to the districts in helping to raise student achievement and promote better teaching and learning. Come hear how your district can benefit from new advances in this program.
• Avoid Employment Discrimination
School leaders must always maintain sound policies and practices to prevent and address potential employment discrimination. A panel of experts on both sides of the table explain how to avoid violations and how to address potential problems before they start.
• Dropout Prevention
An in-depth discussion of promising practices for dropout prevention identified in a recent study by the Rennie Center for Education. The session will also present dropout prevention program funding options that are fiscally sustainable on school district budgets.
• Using Data for Student Achievement
Research shows that "high performing" school committees use data as part of their decision-making process. This session focuses on methods of incorporating data into your deliberations in user-friendly methods.
3:00-6:30pm: Exhibit Hall open
4:30pm: MASS Business Meeting
5:00-6:30pm: Reception with Exhibitors
7:00pm: Keynote Dinner
Guest Speakers: Commissioners of Education Sherri Killins (Early Education and Care); Mitchell Chester (Elementary and Secondary Education); Richard Freeland (Higher Education)
Presentation: MA School Wellness Awards
Musical Guests: Rockland High School Senior Chorus and Jazz Band
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 10
7:30am-11:30am: Registration (reopens: 2:00-5:00pm)
7:30am-3:00pm: Exhibit Hall open
7:30-9:30am: Continental Breakfast with Exhibitors
8:45-10:00am: Panel Session IV
• School Law 101
A review of state ethics, the open meeting and public records laws, including perspectives on how to handle complaints.
• Best Practices in Vocational Technical Education
An exciting session dedicated to “Best Practices” in today’s vocational technical education. A ‘carousel format’ with expert presenters, including a collaborative STEM Early College High School with Northeastern University.
• New Educator Evaluation Regulations: Opportunity and Challenge
New regulations on educator evaluation hold great promise and pose substantial challenge for school committees and superintendents. This session will introduce participants to key features of the required system and present components of the model evaluation system being developed by the DESE in collaboration with key stakeholders. Challenges and ways early adopter districts are tackling them will also be highlighted.
• Leading Your District in the Use of Technology for 21st Century Skills
Presenters will focus on how effective leadership from Central Office, building principals and teacher leaders can help support the integration of 21st century skills in the classroom. Learn how the Reading, Bedford and Burlington Public Schools have developed a process to build the capacity of teachers and administrators in the district so as to prepare students to be productive in a 21st century global society.
• Innovation Models
This workshop will explore the Innovation School movement in MA and highlight the successful launching of the Paul Revere Innovation School in Revere, as well as the challenges associated with starting up a virtual innovation school in Hadley. Panelists will discuss the roles of teachers, administrators, school committee, teachers’ association, consultants, and the MA DESE play in developing and implementing an innovation school.
• Ideas to Improve your District’s Budget
In the public sector, budgets are policy, planning and communication tools, not just a set of numbers that delineate income and expenses. Ideas on how to improve your budget, build credibility and maximize your ability to garner support for your funding request.
• Collaborative Regional Organization Update
Several of the state’s education collaboratives have formed a more powerful joint initiative, the Collaborative Regional Organization (CRO), to expand their capacities even more. See how organizations like the ones in Southeastern Massachusetts are working both to serve their member districts and set an example for others to keep service quality high and costs manageable.
10:00-10:45am: Coffee with Exhibitors
10:45-Noon: General Session: The Future of Collective Bargaining
Guest Speakers: Alan Macdonald, President Emeritus, MA Business Roundtable (moderator); Thomas Kochan, Professor of Management, MIT; Paul Toner, President, MA Teachers Association; Dorothy Presser, Lynnfield School Committee; Scott Borstel, Superintendent, Marshfield
12:15pm: Buffet/Network Lunch
1:30pm: Ice Cream Social with Exhibitors
Sponsored by: Cape Dairy, LLC
2:30-3:45pm: Panel Session V
• Whose Warrant Is It Anyway?
Have you ever looked at a school department warrant at Town Meeting, and it didn't resemble in language or intent what your Committee sent over? Have you ever felt your warrant was hijacked? Panelists will discuss their past experiences and share ideas on how to deal with the aftermath.
• Rolling out the New Evaluation Process
This workshop is designed to be a highly participatory dialogue about how districts have initiated implementation of the new educator evaluation regulations. Panelists will share various opportunities and obstacles districts have encountered as they implement the new educator evaluation regulations. The workshop will include an overview of how superintendents in one region have created a network to share ideas about implementation strategies and collaboratively problem solve.
• Conditions for School Effectiveness: New Metric for Measuring Progress
The Conditions for School Effectiveness, voted into regulation last year, can be used as benchmarks for schools to gauge their practice in key areas. Presenters will discuss what these conditions look like with regard to effective instruction, assessment, aligned curriculum and tiered instruction and how the self-assessment can help a school develop a strategy to improve teaching and learning.
• Transportation Reviews
A discussion of the basic process used when a district requests a transportation review, the types of information needed, and the various goals that have been accomplished through the site review and subsequent report.
• Ethical and Moral Leadership
This session will provide a model for thinking about difficult ethical dilemmas based on the work of the Institute for Global Ethics. Presenters will discuss how training in ethical literacy can provide tools for school leaders to think about values and ethical decision-making, as well as provide a framework for engaging staff and students in analyzing and resolving ethical dilemmas.
• Communications: What to do When Something Really Bad Happens
Three seasoned education communications experts will advise attendees on how to handle the good news—and the bad. How to reach out to the media; advice on “dos” and “donts” as well as brief case examples and what districts did to get out of trouble.
4:00-5:15pm: Panel Session VI
• Superintendent Evaluation
Superintendent evaluations will be impacted by the new educator evaluation regulations. Learn about effective instruments to assess the performance of your superintendent and to incorporate important changes. Session presenters, who are all members of the DESE Superintendent Evaluation Task Force, will also describe the collaborative process that resulted in the new evaluations.
• Financial Operation Reviews: Common Findings
MASBO has conducted over 40 Financial Operations Reviews in school districts and learned a great deal about several common “inefficiencies” that tend to reappear. Learn to identify and trouble-shoot these inefficiencies in your district and how to correct them.
• Teacher Evaluation Model
As controversial educator standards require the renegotiations of contracts and evaluations of everyone from the classroom to the central office, here is an update on how you can set policy and implement those changes.
• Peer Reviewing the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Special Education Services
In April 2010 the nine member districts of the Assabet Valley Collaborative determined that evaluating the efficiency and effectiveness of special education services was a priority for their long-range school improvement efforts. A survey identified the utilization of Paraprofessionals as a common priority for all participating districts.
The multi-district initiative employs a layered approach to evaluation activities that include research, professional development, capacity-building, program evaluation, data collection, inter-district collaboration, and a multi-disciplinary site visit process. A pilot study was successfully completed in one district in 2011; the Collaborative is now in the process of rolling out comprehensive Paraprofessional studies in three additional districts, and a self-study in a fourth district utilizing the same tools and process internally. Workshop attendees will learn about the process AVC districts used to approach this innovative work and will receive copies of the tools and protocols developed to implement the evaluations.
• Advocacy Plans
Need help figuring out a plan of attack to sell an override? Want to know how to work on passing a bill into law at the Statehouse or on Capitol Hill? Whether your issues are local, state, or federal this panel will offer helpful tips and information to formulate your plan of action and execute it.
• Saving $$$$: The Belmont Experience
Over the past decade, the Belmont Public Schools successfully instituted three important cost-savings initiatives: controlling medical insurance rates; Energy Service Company (ESCo) projects; and collaborative special education transportation. Participants will discuss the process and how they achieved these savings.
• School Law 201
A discussion by MASC and MASS General Counsels of recent state and federal education-related legislation.
6:00pm: MASC Awards Banquet
Honors: MASC All-State School Committee and Lifetime Achievement Recipients
Special Presentation: Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, Jr. Award
8:30pm: Movie Night: The Finland Phenomenon: Inside the World’s Most Surprising School System (followed by Question and Answers with educator/author/film producer Tony Wagner)
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11
7:30-11:30am: Registration (reopens: 1:30-4:30pm)
7:30-9:30am
Continental Breakfast (Ballroom Foyer)
Sponsored by: NEW ENGLAND DAIRY & FOOD COUNCIL
8:00-8:45am: Division Meetings: Divisions VIII and IX
9:00-10:15am: Greetings: State Auditor Suzanne Bump
General Session: Learning to Innovate, Innovating to Learning (Ballroom)
What skills will students need in order to get—and keep—a good job in the new global economy? And are they the same skills students will need in order to be an active and informed citizen? Are we teaching and testing the skills that matter most? What are the most urgent priorities for change in education? In this provocative talk based on his recent best-seller, The Global Achievement Gap, and research for his forthcoming book, Tony Wagner addresses some of the most essential questions for educational leadership in the 21st century.
Guest Speaker: Tony Wagner, Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education
10:30-11:45am: Panel Session VII
• 10 Years of War: Supporting Military-Connected Families and Children
Since 9/11 over 30,000 residents of MA have deployed to a war zone, many more than one time. it is estimated that over 210,000 family members have had a loved one served in harm's way. Come learn how school communities support resiliency for the over 13,000 military connected children who live in our state.
• Social Media
Facebook and other social media pose special challenges for school leaders including regulating out-of-school conduct, addressing on-line bullying, and free speech rights. Two expert attorneys present the issues.
• Student Emotional Well-Being
Recent analysis of over 200 social and emotional interventions in schools has found compelling evidence that educational approaches utilizing social emotional learning increase achievement test scores by as many as 11-17 percentile points. Leaders who are aware of this research and apply it to their work will shape a culture of continuous learning for both their staff and their students and will explore how these research findings can help strengthen education expertise and improve student results.
• School Committee Role in Achievement
Learn how school committees can take specific steps to impact student achievement from experienced fellow board members and researchers.
• Student Obesity
Learn about successful community/school partnerships that foster a healthy lifestyle and encourage students to become more active. Examples of healthy school lunch and breakfast programs will be presented, along with grant opportunities that districts can participate in to support these programs.
• The Sustainable School Agenda
Using curriculum as a focal point, panelists will explore the link between green school education and practices, and STEM and Innovative curricula, resulting in heightened students involvement in schools, an increase in staff, student and family engagement and important energy and related savings to the district.
• School Building Authority Update
What is the MA School Building Authority doing for schools and what does the future look like?
• Technology as a Tool for Personalization, Learning and Assessment
As districts prepare students for college and careers, schools must incorporate and integrate new technology into their structure, curriculum, pedagogy, and culture. The extent to which this technology is accepted and used teachers and administrators understanding and it, knowing how to use it. Panelists will demonstrate some of the new technologies.
• Collective Bargaining for Health Insurance
The new health insurance reform statute will change collective bargaining practices. Learn the implications for school committees and superintendents and how your contract negotiations may be impacted.
12:00-1:45pm: Veteran’s Day Lunch Program
Guest Speakers: Paula Rauch, MD. Chief, Child Psychiatry Liaison Service, MA General Hospital; Alexis and Robin Brown
Presentation: SkillsUSA Gold Medal Awards
1:45-2:30pm: Division Meetings: Divisions I-VII
2:00pm:
• Delegate Registration
• Past Presidents Council Meeting
2:30-3:45pm: Panel Session VIII
• Special Education: Celebrating what’s Right—and Addressing what’s Not
Panelists will discuss the challenges that schools and parents face today, propose a new vision for change going forward, and provide some practical, ready-to-use steps to transform this broken system.
• Roles & Responsibilities (Part 1)
Everything a school committee member (new or veteran) needs to know about the laws and regulations governing school leadership and your roles and responsibilities as an elected official and education leader.
• Behavioral Health Services for At-Risk Students
The Children’s Behavioral Health Initiative, a division of the MA Office of Health and Human Services, has created a resource guide for school personnel. This guide contains practical information that school personnel can share with the families of students who may benefit from these services. Presenters will provide a brief overview of MassHealth’s home and community-based behavioral health services and how schools and providers can work together to support these students.
2:30-4:00pm
• Investigating Bullying & Harassment: What’s Legally Required? What Works?
State and federal law imposes requirements that school districts appropriately investigate and address bullying and harassment. This session will provide guidance and resources to school leaders and policy makers to help ensure student safety and compliance with the law.2:30pm: MASC Resolutions Clinic
2:30pm: MASC Resolutions Clinic
3:00pm: MASC Delegate Assembly
4:00-5:15pm: Panel Session IX
• Roles & Responsibilities (Part 2)
A continuation of R & R Part I (Friday, 2:30-3:45pm)
• Difficult People and Personal Styles
Learn how to be an effective school committee even with difficult people in the room.
• Strategic Direction in an Economic Crisis
Many districts are looking to “Theories of Action” and strategic direction as an alternative to a costly and cumbersome – and often ignored – strategic plan. School leaders will present these alternatives and explain how a more workable way of planning can help ensure success.
6:00pm: Life Member Reception
7:00pm: Life Member Dinner
Honors: MASC Board of Directors 2012 and Newly Elected Life Members
Musical Guests: Lynnfield High School Jazz Combos
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 12
9:00-11:45am: New Member Orientation
This key session for new and veteran members will focus on changes to the open meetings, conflict of interest, and public records laws and requirements.
9:00-10:15am: Parliamentary Procedures
An intensive review of parliamentary procedures for school committees.
10:30-11:45am: Collective Bargaining
Everything you need to know to bargain strategically for student achievement.